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LAUGHING LOOKS LIKE BEING CHOSEN AS A CHAMPION IN THE US

Article by Nancy Sexton, taken from James Underwood's Digest, 1/10/13:

Barely a week has gone by this season when DANSILI hasn’t been a prominent name. A tally of 19 stakes winners places the Juddmonte stalwart behind only Galileo (on 28) but he holds the edge as far as Group or Grade 1 winners are concerned with an impressive six to his credit.

Former Juddmonte colour-bearer Foreteller, a 100,000gns Tattersalls horses in training graduate, got the ball rolling in Australia back in March when taking the Ranvet Stakes at Rosehill. In Europe, his runners are headed by Lady Lloyd-Webber’s homebred The Fugue, winner of the Yorkshire Oaks and Irish Champion Stakes, while his current crop of three-year-olds include Flintshire and Winsili, successful in the Grand Prix de Paris and Nassau Stakes respectively for Khaled Abdullah.

Group-winning three-year-olds Riposte, Remote, Vancouverite and Zibelina have also contributed to an excellent season in Europe. And there seems much to look forward to once again with his two-year-olds, which include last week’s Oh So Sharp Stakes winner Miss France. She was one of two stakes winners on Friday’s Newmarket card for DANSILI, alongside Listed Godolphin winner Renew, one of 17 stakes horses bred on the DANSILI- Sadler’s Wells cross.

TWO GRADE ONES

However, DANSILI is also making his presence felt in the US, where he seems likely to end the year as the sire of a champion. Laughing, bred by the Dukes Of Roxburghe and Devonshire, broke through at the highest level in July when holding on by a head from Dream Peace, also by DANSILI, in the Diana Stakes at Saratoga. After returning to take the Grade 2 Ballston Spa Handicap over the same course and distance, she lined up in Saturday’s Flower Bowl Invitational Stakes over 1m2f at Belmont Park and under an excellent front-running ride by Jose Lezcano, held off her fast-finishing stable companion, Dylan Thomas’s daughter Tannery, to win by half-a-length.

Laughing is one of two Grade 1 winners in the US this season for DANSILI alongside James Wigan’s Stoute’s Dank, the wide margin winner of the Beverly D Stakes in August.

Winner of the Listed Nijinsky Stakes for Charles O’Brien, Laughing changed hands to Richard Santulli last summer. With two Grade 1 victories to her credit this season, she seems very likely to be in the mix for American champion turf filly at the end of the year.

While it is no secret that DANSILI fares particularly well with Sadler’s Wells line mares, Laughing is a good example of how well he also works with those containing Never Bend blood, especially Mill Reef and his son Shirley Heights. Laughing is out of the Be My Chief mare Comic and thus inbred to Danzig (a pattern also seen in DANSILI's Group 2-winning son BATED BREATH) but her second dam, Circus Act, is a daughter of Shirley Heights, whose name also appears in the background of other DANSILI Group 1 winners Dank (out of a mare by Darshaan) and Flintshire.

NEVER BEND

Mill Reef and/or Never Bend also feature in the background of Fallen For You and Rail Link, as well as further seven Group 2 and 3 winners by DANSILI, namely Dream Peace, Glowing, Illustrious Blue, Remote, Requinto, Thomas Chippendale and Zibelina.

Comic, also bred by the two Dukes, is out of Circus Act, an unraced daughter of the 1981 Lowther Stakes winner Circus Ring. Comic has been a grand servant at stud, producing the multiple Grade 2 winner Brave Act to Persian Bold and Listed winner Jellaby Ashkir to Salse. Although not in the same league as that pair on the track, Comic did win twice over 1m2f and 1m3f for John Gosden before running down the field in the 1999 Ribblesdale Stakes.

However, she didn’t take long to surpass her dam’s achievements at stud. Her second foal, by Marju, won the Silver Tankard Stakes under the name Comic Strip for Sir Mark Prescott before heading to Hong Kong, where renamed Viva Pataca, he became a popular champion and dual winner of the Audemars Piguet Queen Elizabeth II Cup.

Laughing, a 275,000gns Tattersalls October purchase by Charles O’Brien, is the seventh foal out of Comic, also the dam of minor winners Comedy Act and Circus Clown. Her first foal, Flatter, has made a promising start at stud as the dam of Turkish Listed winner Opstinate (by Dutch Art).

The second and third generations of this family were cultivated by Snailwell Stud, who bred Comic’s dam Circus Act and campaigned her sister, the 1989 Lupe Stakes winner Lady Shipley, as well as her half-sister, the 1995 Upavon Stakes winner Elie Ardensky.